The caliber of everyone's entries continues to escalate with each contest, which is exciting to see. It makes it all the more challenging and fun to see how this year's tournament goes down.

Great points, Rook. I have to say I went through a similar 'learning curve' before I had my personal "ah-ha" moment in the alphabet fighter contest. The two main things I learned about building were "Don't Settle" and "Commit" (which are somewhat related to "Never Rush").

I used to think 2-3 really cool NPU ideas/shapes for a ship were enough, and "settled" by neglecting the details on the rest of it. Now I've established a "one day" rule for myself; Every time I think I'm done, I let it rest at least one full day. If I don't come up with any improvement ideas in that time, then it's likely done.

The "commit" part is to build it like you are never going to take it apart. Get those stickers/parts you need to finish the model in style.

Good luck everyone!__________________________________EDIT: One other thing I'll add on photography is "control the crop". I remembered the tournament bracket used square cropped photos last year, so I made sure mine were that way in advance. Otherwise, flickr crops them from the center and there are no guarantees your entire ship or bounty hunter will fit into view.

ted @ndes wrote:The caliber of everyone's entries continues to escalate with each contest, which is exciting to see. It makes it all the more challenging and fun to see how this year's tournament goes down.

Great points, Rook. I have to say I went through a similar 'learning curve' before I had my personal "ah-ha" moment in the alphabet fighter contest. The two main things I learned about building were "Don't Settle" and "Commit" (which are somewhat related to "Never Rush").

I used to think 2-3 really cool NPU ideas/shapes for a ship were enough, and "settled" by neglecting the details on the rest of it. Now I've established a "one day" rule for myself; Every time I think I'm done, I let it rest at least one full day. If I don't come up with any improvement ideas in that time, then it's likely done.

The "commit" part is to build it like you are never going to take it apart. Get those stickers/parts you need to finish the model in style.

Good luck everyone!

__________________________________EDIT: One other thing I'll add on photography is "control the crop". I remembered the tournament bracket used square cropped photos last year, so I made sure mine were that way in advance. Otherwise, flickr crops them from the center and there are no guarantees your entire ship or bounty hunter will fit into view.

Yes, I noticed it on some of the bigger entries have the 'flickr crop', thats for the building advice, always nice get into other peoples minds on how they go about the task of creating these impressive builds!

I agree with you...My ship has been cut off from the flickr-crop...Next time i'll need to remember that problem.Anyway, very strange/thik/full of offshots design become disadvantageous this way...really don't like this problem!

This is only my second contest, but i learned the ENORMOUS important of the good MAIN-PICTURE too. I add another note to your ones:- have a large and expensive photo-camera doesn't mean you'll have some incredible pictures!You'll really need to know your ship, to watch it carefully, to take the most representative photo. Maybe some external opinion (friends,parents,girlfriend...) will help you to see some details that you don't understand as the builder of the subject of your photo.

Ooh... if I counted correctly, it looks like we've got a tie here for the 8th spot (the two ships with 24 votes). Good luck to you both in the staff poll (assuming that they do the tie-break the same way they did last year).

Congratulations to all who have made it this far, and good luck to you guys vying for the eighth spot. If you didn't make it don't feel too bad, by the time this is over, only 3 will be left standing anyway, and the competition i think everyone must admit is pretty dang phenomenal. Plus that means you can spend more time on the wheels of justice contest instead of worrying how your entry here is doing =). oh and good to see yours made it as well rook, tho my mouth would be agape if it wasn't, i know it atleast had one of my votes

The Arkose VII and The Eternal Dusk were my favorites in this category, but I'm a bitsurprised The Eternal Dusk wasn't first.Well, this just makes this contest much more interesting. I can't wait to see what will happen next.I keep imagining those awesome ships fighting in space. Lazor blasts, proton torpedos, explosions...